Let’s roll it back a little. Let’s try to separate “experience” from “physics”.

Yes, We experience a present. That does not mean reality contains a moving present or a “now” that is moving towards a future. This is our experience of what feels like the “flow of tim…[Read more]

That’s incorrect in modern epistemology. The old school of thought was that “Knowledge is justified true belief”. It is difficult to shake that idea because it is ‘folk epistemology’ and it has been around for centuries…[Read more]

Reg the Fronkey Farmer wrote:
@simon – I am not trying to prove it false. I am evaluating whether it is textually grounded and conceptually coherent. I was doing conceptual analysis, not arguing metaphysics. The doctrine of the Trinity is not derivable from the text it claims as its source. My claim stands. irrespective of the existence or not o…

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This is not Nicene Trinitarianism. The orthodoxy explicitly says that ‘Each person is fully God”. Not partially god, not a piece of God and certainly not overlapping subsets. When you say “The Venn diagram doesn’t fully overlap” you are asserting partial identit…[Read more]

I went to a 3 day set of lectures to…[Read more]

Simon, the problem with JD Vance isn’t that he “respects” his wife’s atheism — it’s that he doesn’t respect her Hinduism. He’s implying she’s an atheist simply because she isn’t a Christian, which is a rather offensive way to erase a faith practiced by hundreds of millions in India. It’s disingenuous. What he’s really doing is getting…[Read more]

It’s legitimate emergence because the…[Read more]

”Extremists care about the one cause more than human welfare.”

I really like this point. It makes so much sense for today’s white river rafting kakistocracy.

In the comments people talk about how the worst part, in the new relaxation of modesty rules, is the change in God’s unchanging and immutable Word.  How does that work?  It’s a contradiction in someone’s world view.

One of the Elders must have had a divine revelation from the Creator of the Universe. “Seeing a female shoulder is no long…[Read more]

The Hitchens Challenge;

“Name one moral action performed by a believer that could not have been done by a nonbeliever.”

Pope Bob, being a Catholic and with his degree in math, has SIN nailed down. Not sure what he is like with COS and TAN though.

The motivation for people’s sense of responsibility to comply with moral norms and behave morally arises from a complex interplay of psychological, social, and cultural factors. Below are some key motivators:

1. Empathy and Compassion

Innate Response: Humans are biologically wired for empathy, allowing them to feel the emotions of o…[Read more]

Genghis Khan unified all the Mongolian tribes with his brutality.

Alexander III of Macedonia was a fiendishly cruel man who introduced elephants to the art of war. No doubt a few people were happy with this.

I’m not going to mention the German guy.

Your t…[Read more]

What is there to tell?  The bullet went through the top of his ear.

Did you even read the article?

I don’t know but to me it looked totally staged. It hit the ear away from the audience (and camera) view as well so no one really saw it hit him. Just as he’s saying “hey everyone look at the chart over here….(and then he gets to tell eve…[Read more]

Simple incompetence could account for why the Secret Service didn’t put a sniper on that roof.

More like willfully ignorant. They are only incompetent if they choose to be. Meaning – they are not incompetent.

But how did the shooter know that rooftop was going to be empty?  That seems strange.

EXACTLY….think about it…..

Aging in and of itself does not raise ones moral standards. Thinking about morality does. The more you think about life and the more you ponder various scenarios that require a moral response, the higher your standards will become. If you are constrained by…[Read more]

@Simon – Are you attempting to get an ought from an is?

(Kant’s) theory proposes that it is not consequences that should guide our actions; rather, we should be concerned about acting rationally and in accordance with duty to moral principles.

Think about it: It also presupposes a preexisting moral sense. And I think a moral sense usually implies a belief in generalizability. (“Is this sort of…[Read more]

You got me. Good one.

Let me change my assertion a bit, though, by taking the geographical reference out. I’m not sure why the U.S. should even belong in NATO since it is European nations which need to worry about Russia invading and, as I pointed out, their alliance, with the U.S. gone, still would contain two nuclear weapons powers and,…[Read more]

Well, the Samurai believed in some mix of Shinto (a religion that’s all about spirits) and Zen, a religion often referred to by people using the other sense of “spiritual.”

They were spiritual, no doubt about it. Obviously, not in the New Agey, mentalism, pyramid power, food/practice wooery sense.

Spiritual Principles of the Samurai

It is Christian Science that is utter BS. These people will pray to their imaginary god (i.e., do nothing productive) rather than seek medical attention for th…[Read more]

To be clear, I don’t deny that scientism is a “thing,” or that reliance solely on science and its methods can be taken too far. I know things without resorting to science all the time, and not just my internal states. I know someone is changing a tire on their car outside my window. I know it’s been a while since I went out to see a movie…[Read more]

Did you read the link article above that I attached? It talks about how Prince Harry threatens a certain type of man. How do you figure he’s a whiner? It seems to me like you must be a little bit biased towards the royal family. I wonder why is that?

I suggest you are using “fallacy” in an informal/colloquial sense, not in the rigorous formal sense of philosophy where fallacies are either formal or informal (sometimes referred to as “verbal fallacies”). Please take seven minutes out of your day to watch a short video and perhaps you’ll stop talking…[Read more]

You can have personal knowledge, in a sense. For example, I’m thinking of something. I know what it is. You don’t. No science involved.

Science comes into play when it’s general knowledge we’re talking about, and to establish something as general knowledge you need proof. This is where science comes in. I’m betting you can’t name any…[Read more]

From Wikipedia: Scientism is the opinion that science and the scientific method are the best or only way to render truth about the world and reality.

Let’s accept that “definition” for the sake of argument.

Prove it wrong that science and scientific method are the best or only way to render truth about the world and reality and…no…[Read more]

I don’t think so-called scientism is even a fallacy. It is neither a formal fallacy nor a verbal fallacy. Has someone invented or identified a third category of fallacies? Putting an “ism” at the end of a word doesn’t ipso facto create a fallacy or consumerism, optimism, and perfectionism would be fallacies. Many ism words simply denote…[Read more]

I think she was anti- the whole thing from the moment she started, because, who wouldn’t be?  Who would want to be a Royal wife?

That’s what everyone assumed about her….but if you watch the Netflix series that’s not AT ALL the case.

Apart from that, he thinks the Royal family doesn’t like Meghan, (*because she’s mixed race*) which is pro…

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Morality is a complex and multifaceted concept that has puzzled philosophers, theologians, and scientists for centuries. While there are many different theories about the origins of morality, most can be grouped into one of two broad categories: religious or secular.

Religious…[Read more]

You can’t be a kind of absolutist. Absolutist under some circumstances while being a relativist under others.

Either you believe in real, eternal, unchanging blah de blah, principles or you believe in man made ones you can try on and change like socks.

Murder is not immoral, for example.  It is illegal.

Morality is the fluffy stuff that bridges the gap between what can be generalised into a rule,…[Read more]

But let’s pretend a fetus has fully working organs, brains and let’s go overboard here, a way of communicating with the outside world.

In whose world does a human being get to leech off another human being without the leechee giving permission?  You’ve got a rare blood di…[Read more]

The rain it falleth on the just, and on the unjust fella
But chiefly on the just, because the unjust stole the just’s umbrella.

It is very unlikely that creationists would understand the term. It is too esoteric to be known by the vast majority of people unless they have already discovered it while studying higher level biology at some point. That would mean creationists would have to have read another book. But it makes…[Read more]

He has been waiting 73 years for someone to call him that 🙂

I wonder is anybody really likes indefinite pronouns?

A classic question for philosophy students is to ask them “OK, should we all go outside now and kill ourselves and if not, why not”. I think that question demands an answer.

Why not just say “Take care of my physical and mental well-being”.  If I ever go to the doctor and he says that my spiritual he…[Read more]

@Simon – Yes, but to the people who use it, it means something.

Yes, it can and usually does have a subjective meaning. But as a description of an experience, it does not.  But in any objective sense it is meaningless – or at least not meaningful enough to desc…[Read more]

And that is why I have said the word is meaningless. If it means something different to everyone then it describes nothing. It should be seen as an archaic term. Now I am off to partake in some vittles.

But that Simon is exactly why I said the term is meaningless. It is entirely subjective. On what authority are you claiming his version of spiritual is incorrect and that your definition is correct.

His reasons for claiming the experiences are spiritual…[Read more]

I now have a clearer meaning of what YOU mean by spiritual. That’s the good news. The bad news is that I don’t think it’s what almost everybody who uses the term “spiritual” means by it.

Being part of something greater thane oneself is almost the opposite of an oxymoron, something almost too obvious and mundane to be stated. I’m part of the United States, the solar system, the universe. Duh!

If “it (spirituality) means things like achieving and maintaining inner peace and happiness; and self-actualising: achieving…[Read more]